If you are hosting a Halloween party this year, or want to do something special for the kids, why not try some DIY decoration and turn your home into a haunted house.
Below we have some hints and tips on some simple techniques you can use to create some spooky fun décor.
Front Garden Graveyard
Make an impression for your guests and trick or treaters by making your front garden into a gothic graveyard. You can start by buying or making tombstones. You can make tombstones with papier-mache and a little paint. This way you can personalize the inscriptions. Take inspiration from Spike Milligan’s headstone, his epitaph read ‘I told you I was ill’. You can also make a sign like the one from The Rocky Horror Picture Show saying ‘Enter At Your Own Risk’. You can get a severed arm or part of a skeleton and make it look like it is coming out of the ground. Finally, you can illuminate areas or your path with carved pumpkins.
Haunted Photos
If you have a printer and some spare frames at home you can make some haunted photo frames. Get a photo of yourself, or your friends and family, and make a black-and-white version on your computer. After printing the photo, you can make it look old by brushing paint mixed with water using a sponge. Glue the photo to a piece of card then cut the eyes out. Put the photo in the frame, and then fit mini LED lights behind the eyes. You can either have them on all the time, or put it on a setting where they slowly flash on and off. If you don’t want to use lights but you’re a dab hand at Photoshop, you can try adding ghosts to family photos or distort the faces of people in the photos.
Specimen Jars
Clever and effective props you can make at home include specimen jars and terrariums. To make a terrarium, all you need to do is get an empty glass jar and glue twigs to the inside of the lid. You can add plastic bugs or a fake bird along with moss to make it look authentic. To make a specimen jar, fill the jar with water and use green or yellow food colouring to give the water a spooky tint. Then put objects inside like cauliflower as it makes an effective brain.
Spooky Silhouettes
You can either copy Macauley Culkin in Home Alone and cut out a silhouette of a ghost or a monster and attach it to a moving train set, or you can make a curtain silhouette. In both cases start by making a card silhouette, cut it out then paint it black. When making a curtain silhouette, attach the card to a piece of chiffon, and then hang it to your curtain pole. You can make the silhouette look as if it is peering through the window. In order to make both of these effects work, use a lamp on the floor point up at the window.
Spiderwebs
Rather than buying fake spiderwebs, you can use cheesecloth to make antique looking, moth eaten cloth, that looks like spiderwebs. In order to do this, get pieces of cheesecloth and attach them to your ceiling. Then you need to cut the cloth into strips of different lengths, and tear holes and rip the cloth in places. To get the best effect, rub the cloth to fray the edges. Finally, stick a few plastic spiders on it.
We hope that these spooky suggestions have inspired you to start planning your Halloween decorations today.
Suzanne Chambers works at Lilleymans and loves nothing more than throwing themed parties for her family and friends.